Of Love and Water Lilies
by themiscyra
Summary: Set post-Kingdom Come: the daughter of Diana and Clark is born with the ability to control life or death. How will this effect her relationship with her god-father, the mortal Bruce Wayne?
1. Prologue

**Rated M:** This is a rating not necessarily for anything majorly graphic (though there will be brief sections that are more graphic than the rest) but there is (or will be in later chapters) a VERY strong and more adult theme. To put it short (because some people may be turned off by this and if that's the case, I don't want you to waste your time): Bruce Wayne's 'niece', the child of Clark and Diana, falls in love with Bruce. Yes, it's supposed to be fairly twisted and it's supposed to make you uncomfortable. It is not, I can promise you, smut. 

The only main character throughout this fanfiction whose personality I'm responsible for would be Hope (though I'm still unsure of whether that is a suitable name, and suggestions are quite welcome, I just wanted to make due in a pinch!), though even she was initially inspired by the established Kingdom Come plotline.

This fanfiction is set to a post-Kingdom Come time period: if you haven't read the graphic novel—and it is HIGHLY recommended, whether you are a Wonder Woman, Batman, or Superman fan, enjoy comics, or enjoy mythology (since I'm one of the firm believers that comics are indeed modern mythology)—then here is a rundown without ruining the plot:

Batman is very old, in his late sixties or seventies, and even needs such a thing as a small metal exoskeleton to support himself.

There are a good number of 'super-children' around now that the old superheroes have had children, and some of which are even beginning to have children of their own.

Most superheroes are now retired, determining that the world of crime fighting should (more or less) be left up to humans to take care of.

If something is a bit sketchy, I apologize (and I would love for you to let me know!). I have a decent working knowledge of the Batman universe, but my knowledge of Wonder Woman's and Superman's universes are each pretty limited. Remember: any and all feedback is welcome, whether it's to tell me I'm doing good or to berate me on how horribly I play the characters. I'm a big girl, and I can handle it.

Without further ado (hah, like you even _read_ any of that) I give you the prologue.

* * *

**Prologue**

"Hello?" These days, Bruce Wayne has to answer his own phone: it's been many years since Alfred's death, and he still feels that something is innately wrong when the phone rings and rings if let be. He coughs, stretches a little; he has been sitting at the chair before his computer console in the cave, monitoring the city.

"Bruce, it's time." The voice coming to him from halfway across America (some hospital in Kansas) is familiar, and there is an unbidden excitement in it—though maybe a slight queasiness as well. Bruce can understand that, because immediately his own gust feels tied in knots.

"I'll be there as soon as possible." He hangs up, and then turns, going as quickly as possible to his hangar—the private jet. For a moment he pauses, pale blue eyes turning form the jet to something darker, sleeker: the Batwing.

_Diana and Clark would want me to go as Bruce Wayne, not as the Batman,_ he thinks, and wonders if that's more of an incentive than a deterrent. He imagines that he owes it to them to go somewhat normally. _But what's faster?_ He asks himself. Smirking in the way that he has, where his lips barely curl (like he's hiding a secret), he reasons: _Then again, they wouldn't want me to be late._

It only takes a few minutes, and he's in the air over Gotham: Bruce is glad that it's night here, but knows that it's probably only early evening in the Midwest. It doesn't really matter though, his stealth technology works for both radar and plain vision. The flight is smooth, and as fast as he's going, it will take only 30 more minutes before he reaches his destination. Even then he knows that by the time he gets there, by the time he's walking in through the hospital doors, it will be over: Amazon princesses didn't spend very long in labor, and as far as he knew, weren't known for complicated births.

Though he can imagine that it is unlike him, Bruce Wayne can barely contain his excitement. He is well versed at maintaining a stony, austere countenance, but he is also certainly aware of his own emotions that tumult and twist inside of him. They had kept the gender of the baby a secret—had asked not to be shown during the sonograms (and Clark had promised not to peek): it would be a surprise for everyone. It's been obvious that Diana has been hoping for a girl—less obvious (but still noticeable, to Bruce at least) that Clark wants a boy. Bruce knows that Diana thinks he's been rooting for a boy, but he isn't so sure, really. He's had some experience with 'raising' both boys and girls, and part of him is actually wanting a girl more than a boy, at this point.

Bruce Wayne passes into the hospital, dark shades on even though the sun is gone from the sky, glowing faintly before falling completely away from this side of the world. He moves more slowly than he likes, but as fast as his old body will allow. He tries to hold his back up straight, but there is a permanent slouch about him now, and the only thing left of him that is bright and quick are his eyes, faded but sharp. He nods towards a nurse, giving her a charming smile, and she tells him where to go—deciding instead to escort him, she takes the time to beam at him, saying that he is expected. Battered fingers that used to be able to grip windowsills and the sides of buildings, worn out hands that used to help him live life stories above the pavement, slip the sunglasses into the pocket of his collared shirt, which is a blue slightly darker than his eyes.

The man (who is both commanding and nearly a cripple, if one was to remove the braces supporting his body) walks with a purpose, with a drive that burns in the eyes of onlookers; this is the way he's always walked, the way he's walked since he was eight years old. Now however, it is possible that there is something lighter about it, less brooding: maybe even there is a slight bounce in his step, if you look at just the right time, with a certain angle.

When the elderly man enters the room, he quickly recognizes that he's missed the actual birth by only a few short moments; he can spot his two friends immediately, though there are quite a few people in the small room. They seem to glow: Diana lying on the white hospital bed, and Clark leaning over her. He doesn't think that this glow (and it is a tangible thing, a very real luminescence, as if the lighting were different about their shoulders) is because they're more than human, but rather because they're new parents. Watching them there, cradling and cooing at the newborn, Bruce feels a cold _aloneness_ in his gut that combats the hot excitement in his chest. _Two's a company,_ he thinks even as he wills himself not to be bitter.

"Bruce!" Clark-El, Superman, the once-upon-a-time Clark Kent, turns to him smiling, and through the thin frost that has settled over his heart, Bruce returns the smile: he's given the man a hard time before, of course he has, but this? Even Bruce can't think of bringing a dark cloud here. To anyone watching: one man is old and bent, and the other is still in his prime, strong-looking—in fact, younger than Bruce remembered him from the latest crisis. Batman, the Dark Knight turned simply Bruce, Bruce Wayne, moves toward the hospital bed.

Diana's mouth opens in the kind of smile that only a woman part-Goddess can render; her dark hair is tossed and her brow is glistening lightly with perspiration. Her chest heaves, but only lightly now, and there is a bundle crooked in her arm, held to her. Bruce thinks that she is striking in this moment, that she is both warrior and mother, and seeing her like this somehow makes her infinitely more beautiful. He can barely look away from her, towards the infant in her arms.

"A girl," Diana breathes, still smiling her broad, Amazon smile: Diana who is Wonder Woman, who is a princess, who is the embodiment of both the necessity of war and the forever goal of peace. "A baby girl." She is beaming, and Bruce feels like the air he breathes is that much more sweet—he thinks that maybe he's been holding his breath for the last few months. _A beautiful baby girl,_ he concurs, and knows that already Diana couldn't be more proud; knows too that Clark isn't disappointed, not even a little.

There is a hand on his back, a hand that could without a doubt crush his entire body—and it gently urges him forward, closer to the bed. Bruce doesn't know whether to resent this kindness, that the newborn's father would allow Bruce his place in order to be closer to the baby, at least for a while, or if he should just be glad for it, appreciate it. He goes with the latter, and then he's close enough to smell Diana, the sweat and life on her, and close enough to see the baby girl's tiny little fingernails. Reaching out tentatively, he traces a finger over the baby's arm, which is extended from the blanket.

It, she, takes a hold of his finger, and gives it a squeeze: doesn't seem very willing to let go, either. "Her name is Hope," Diana tells him, and he feels the warmth and already a certain type of strength in the newborn's grip. There is a stunning, yet somehow elusive scent of lilies that come from nowhere and everywhere, and eventually Bruce has to turn away, to hide the couple of tears that are welling in his eyes.


	2. Bad News Comes to Kansas

**Chapter One:**** Bad News Comes to Kansas**

** Some Eight Years Later **

"Hope? Can you come out here, please?" Diana calls her daughter, with Clark somewhere behind her, busying himself with something trivial. She understands that he doesn't want to show his weakness, and though he'd always tell their daughter (who, in keeping with everyone's expectations, was a bit of a hard-case) that it wasn't a bad thing to cry, he's unable to face his daughter with tears standing in his eyes. He is a strong person, and knows that if it were not his own daughter that comes to hear them now, that it would make things easier. Diana is not crying, not yet, but she knows that the tears will come. There is the sound of bare feet coming down hardwood stairs, and with the emotional overload of the moment, Diana almost wants to yell at her child for dawdling: for taking her time by walking instead of getting there quick, like they all knew she could.

"Yeah mom?" The girl (she is eight years old at this time) has blue eyes; this isn't much of a surprise, as both her mother and father do too—what is more surprising, is that the color and shape of them more closely match Bruce Wayne's than either of her parents. Maybe this is in mockery of the third's more spiritual than actual role in her conception, but it's probably just dumb luck.

The way that Diana can see her daughter, Hope, can see the child's intelligent (and severe) eyes quickly pass over both her mother's face and the way her father is half-turned away from her: that is not luck. This swift and efficient way of surveying a situation: that is not luck. The scowl that settles into her young brow, subconsciously: that is not luck. Again, with emotions running so high, Diana wants to reprimand her daughter, wants to scold her for being so _pointed_ and so _quick._

It is not luck, the way that Hope uses her Batman's eyes to do these things. Maybe, most probably, this is learned behavior: Diana—who was Wonder Woman but cannot be now, not today—consoles herself; she doubts that Bruce Wayne would teach her daughter these things, and not so young. Not after his long years with his own 'children'. And still, Diana feels a sullen rage rise in her, directed at Bruce Wayne.

Not because of how her daughter is more like him than either she or her husband will admit, and not because of all the detective kits he sends her, or the specialized computer games, or the money, or the toys, or the way that she loves his presents best because he never sends _clothes_.

Diana, who cannot, cannot, cannot be Wonder Woman (feels like she may never be able to call herself that again) is feeling a sinking and awful, hopeless frustration at Bruce Wayne, who was Batman.

She is utterly lost with and furious at Bruce Wayne, who will never be Batman again. Bruce Wayne is dying.

"What's wrong?" Hope asks her mother with the Batman's scowl; the scowl Diana doesn't know whether she simply picked it up after seeing it on her 'uncle's' face, or if maybe it's Hope's attempt to emulate the man. With those eyes, _his_ eyes (_Impossible,_ she tells herself, but also reminds herself that stranger things have happened) staring her down, she has to look away for a moment, to collect her thoughts. If Hope hadn't recognized something amiss before, this gesture is enough to send alarms ringing in her young mind. "Tell me, what's wrong? Dad?"

This is when she still calls him dad, and even then, it's rare. Neither her mother or her father understand why Hope is so distant with her father; in his worst suspicions Clark sometimes thinks that it may be Bruce's doing, trying to get at him in the worst way possible. A psychiatrist would have suggested that Bruce had something to do with it, but not so directly: probably that it was a case where Bruce was the father that Hope wished she had had, instead of Clark—but it could just as easily be said, that sometimes two people just don't bond: sometimes even parent and child. Hearing this term of endearment, knowing that he doesn't hear it often enough, Hope's father turns to her, and she knows for sure: _Something is horribly, horribly wrong._

"It's Uncle Bruce, Hope." His voice wavers, and a tear slides over his cheek. As if trying to take it back or console her, he gives a weak smile. Hope feels a terrible _knowing _in her gut, pushes it aside; though she often takes the time to remind them both that she doesn't call him "Uncle Bruce" just "Bruce", she doesn't this time.

"What's wrong?"

"He's dying, Hope. Honey, he's dying," Diana tells her daughter, and hears (feels) Clark draw breath in sharply, as if he's been stung. When she says it, she thinks for one dreadful second that her daughter won't react: that those light blue eyes will turn glacial, that they'll close up and close everything else out. Instead, her young daughter jumps backwards, as if some strong electrical current had literally shocked her. _Eight,_ Diana says to herself. _Eight, that's how old Bruce was when…_And though humans tended to see her and her friends as all powerful, Diana thinks about how so many things are connected, how so many things are out of her reach.

"What? What are you talking about?" Instead of her usual sharp watchfulness, Hope is now outright glaring, her eyes turning from her father to her mother, and back again—_If looks could kill,_ her mother thinks. Hope is thinking about her friends, how some of them like to play jokes, but she knows that this isn't a joke. She knows, though maybe she can't yet describe it, that her 'uncle' (who she _never ever_ calls her uncle, just Bruce, please-and-thank-you) isn't one for joking.

Hope decides that none of those kids, the daughters and sons of other heroes, are her friends anymore, and she also decides at the same moment that she hate jokes. In the logic of an eight-year-old, this makes perfect sense.

"Uncle Bruce is in the hospital, Hope. He has a bad heart—it's sudden for us," And instead of adding 'but we think he's known for a long time', Diana decides that that's too much for a little girl to try to understand, no matter how bright she is, no matter how quickly she blows through her detective kits, and no matter what death-glares she can give. "Honey, we're going to go to the hospital soon."

Hope's small fists clench, and she bares her teeth like a caged animal, taking a step back. Instead of crying, Clark watches her jaw clamp down, and he can hear her molars (some of which are still baby teeth) grind together; he hears her heart beat faster. He loves his daughter, would do anything for her, but he cannot understand her; it breaks his heart to know this. Again, he finds that he must look away.

"No!"

"Hope, it's hard for all of us-" Diana pushes herself away from the table she is sitting at, and takes a couple of steps toward her daughter. There is a shimmer in the air, and as she puts her hands out towards the little girl she quickly draws them back, lips pulled tight. No one seems to be able to pinpoint what exact powers the girl has, beyond superhuman senses, strength, and speed (and flight, but Hope flew so rarely that even that could be negligible): every once in a while, this happened. It seemed that the girl had some power over making force fields, energy shields—this one had given Diana a shock to touch. Though she knows that it is not the right thing to do, getting mad at her daughter for the hurt they all felt, she feels exasperated; she can only hope that Bruce will hang on long enough for them to get to the hospital, to see him a last time. "Hope, this isn't a game, now stop!"

There is a tingling sensation on Clark and Diana's skin, as the energy is depleted from the air. Diana moves towards Hope, and takes the girl in her arms.

"But you said! You said that I didn't have to worry about this!" Hope strikes out at her mother, but without any real enthusiasm. She thinks back to all the movies she has seen: Bruce would watch them with her, and they would eat popcorn and sit in front of his big television in a big room, with all the shades drawn closed if it was daytime, and the shades open if it was nighttime. Sometimes she fell asleep, and though he was old and she was getting heavier, he'd always carry her to one of the big beds in his house (just so that she could wake up in the middle of the night, and sneak out to his). A lot of the movies had people dying in them, though more of it was implied than graphic: Bruce said that she didn't need to see the other stuff, and that better movies had less gore anyway.

When Hope had asked Bruce about death, he had looked at her like she was growing up in a very backward country, as if she was asking him why 2 comes after 1; and he had told her that it was like being born (she knew what that was) but instead, you're being taken back. The way he had said it, it didn't sound like so bad of a thing. When she had asked her parents, all she had gotten was: 'You don't have to worry about that. Not for a long, long time.' And that had been the end of it; she found that Bruce _always_ gave better answers than her dad, Clark—and almost always better than her mom's.

"I know sweetie, I know. But I was talking about- What I mean is, Uncle Bruce is human, Hope. He's not like we are." Diana doesn't like the way her daughter grows rigid in her arms.

"I don't care," Her daughter says, psychically digging in her with heels against the idea of losing Bruce Wayne. Though Bruce may have made death sound so completely natural, Hope knew that it meant she'd never see him again, and when people died in movies, everyone was always sad.

"Hope, he's in the hospital. We have to get ready to go see him, for the last time. We'll talk about it later, I promise, but you have to go get ready now." Though Diana knows Clark would find talking to their child like that cold, and though she can feel him staring at her from a few feet away, she also knows her daughter. Even at a younger age, Hope had always reacted better to logic than bribery or threats. The girl does not nod, does not speak, and most of all does not cry—but curtly turns on her heel, and runs up the stairs.

This time she is moving at more than human speed.


	3. The Last Visit

Author's Note: It should be pretty much obvious by now for those of you who are reading that I'm not much of a Superman writer, and that I'm really just shooting in the dark with him. If you have a suggestion on how to improve his character (or any of the characters, really) than feel free to leave it in a review or by email.   
C.2 

Her mother dresses her in a white dress and she hates it; the last thing she wants is to be wearing something stupid and frilly and _white_. Her mother puts her hair up nice, and even though Hope wouldn't say that it's a _leisurely_ pace, Hope is annoyed with her: annoyed that they aren't on their way to save her 'uncle'. She knows her parents used to do that—save people—and that sometimes they still do, and that Bruce did too. When her mother is finished, Hope turns and sees her father in the door. The man looks at her, feeling his heartbreak: she looks perfect, like a small angel—except for the storm in her eyes, and the set of her jaw. Clark sees his wife in that, and also the man who is dying; without thinking he scoops her into his wide arms, and she is little more than a spot of warm air for him to hold. Hope does not struggle, accepts being held, her face pushed sideways against the chest that has stopped bullets, has stopped trains, has stopped nuclear warheads.

Though her small hands clutch at the back of white-formal shirt in a place near his shoulder, she does not cry. Her father, expecting (maybe hoping for) the warm wetness of tears at his collarbone is disquieted by this, and wonders how deeply this is hurting his daughter—he imagines that if she feels even half of what he or Diana is feeling, then something crucial is building here. Clark wishes that his daughter wouldn't have to know death so early in her life, and knows that such a thing can make or break a child; knowing does not help.

When they arrive at the hospital in Gotham where Bruce Wayne will breathe his last few breaths, the man who was Superman is still holding his little girl in his arms, almost as if he can protect her from this. Bruce is dying, and Clark thinks of Lois; he thinks about how they all knew that the trio they had shared, with all their bickering and their more lovely, rare peaces, would end like this: broken into two. He doesn't know if that knowledge has been harder on him and Diana or Bruce himself. Hope wriggles and slips through his arms before they enter into Bruce Wayne's room; for a moment Clark lingers before letting his daughter go.

_She is already so much like him,_ he thinks, and like Diana had earlier that day, thinks of Bruce Wayne's childhood. _It's not the same,_ he tells himself. _Not nearly._ And still, though the two situations weren't quite comparable, he compares them anyway—though his daughter will still have a mother and a father by the end of the day, he hates this all the same. He hates Bruce Wayne's death for himself of course, his past is intrinsically intertwined with the man who was Batman, and he loves him: even remembering their most bitter disputes, Clark loves Bruce with all the simplistic purity that went with being Superman in the early days.

He takes his daughter's hand in his, and Diana takes the other. The mother and father share a thought, though they do not realize it: _how much does my child know of death?_ And then: _how much will this teach her?_ Though they both know, know _plenty_, that death isn't something a person can hide from, they would both agree that it's a lesson they'd rather their daughter didn't learn. Surprisingly, maybe, it is the small girl who leads them both into the room; while they both stand and attempt to collect their emotions, brighten their countenances, the child steps forward.

In her pale blue eyes is a blazing anger—the displaced sort that goes without any real target, and would instead burn anything in its path. It is the anger that is most visible, seeming out of place from her perfect angel's dress and pulled back hair (and maybe it would be endearing if in another situation) but it isn't really anger that Bruce Wayne sees. Instead, Bruce can see (and even with a breathing tube and most likely veins running quick with some pain killer or another, his eyes are as bright as ever) the pain that fuels that fire, and understands how deep grief can drive a person's rage. Bruce Wayne, who has known the Batman for the vast majority of his life, understands this perfectly well.

Hope does not go to his bedside, and though she was the first to bravely step into the room, she hangs back, casting doubtful, furious looks between the bed he is in (she won't look at _him_ he realizes) and other things in the room: looking for something to blame, something to settle all her anger on. Bruce feels a very strong wave of nostalgia (which turns to a smaller wave of nausea in the pit of his stomach) hit him while he studies her face—he has seen that anger before. Mostly he thinks of Dick Grayson: Dick after his parent's death, Dick wanting to be Robin, Dick wanting _not_ to be Robin. Almost startled, he realizes that whom he is really seeing in his 'niece' is not Dick Grayson (or any Robin or Batgirl, for that matter) but himself. His flesh, though he can hardly feel a thing, crawls; he imagines that he is looking back in time into a mirror.

There is a certain black abyss that creeps up behind his eyes that is not death, but is instead something that he knows well—knows better—guilt.

"Hello Bruce," Diana's voice draws his eyes away from the child (who has retreated—and how it wrenches his heartstrings—to the darkest part of the room, the corners of her mouth drawn down). Diana's words are fluid, even though her cheeks are streaming with fresh tears. Bruce can't gather much strength to speak, so he nods.

"Hey," Clark adds, ineloquently—he is fidgeting very slightly, and Bruce knows that he is crying. He would laugh (not a harsh one either, but an actual laugh) to know that Superman is trying not to cry in front of him, as if it really matters at this point, but all his can manage is a (still, to the last, charming) smile. Clark nods back, and the door to Bruce's room opens again, and two elderly people enter—one is a woman in a wheelchair, and one is a man who walks far less surely than he did in his hay-day. Hope knows both of their birth names, and she knows their other names as well (though even Bruce didn't really teach her them—she picked them up herself, in the way that children learn a language—immersion and careful observance).

The man who was the first Boy Wonder, and later Nightwing, approaches her—Hope likes Dick (not nearly as much as she loves Bruce) but she isn't in any mood for him or his natural quirkiness. He takes a look at her face, and Hope watches his eyebrows rise, and he averts his course: the smile he had begun to approach her with falters, and instead he goes to Bruce. Dick Grayson thinks that maybe he should offer the young girl some condolence, but he remembers the look in her eyes—she is ready to spit fire. He knows that soft words will fall on deaf ears for her, for now at least; it doesn't surprise him, when it comes down to it, either. Hope isn't reclusive; he knows that (maybe more introverted than most kids her age, but with a healthy playful streak when she was in a good mood), and he understands how she is dealing with this. Another child might be crying, another might be shell-shocked: Hope is dealing with it through sullen anger.

Dick's pretty used to that, actually.

Barbara has no such qualms: she takes her chair directly over to the youngster after exchanging nods and quiet greetings with Diana and Clark. Her vision has deteriorated since her time as Oracle—the endless days and nights of computer screens take their toll, yet still she is relatively nimble for her handicap. Dick thinks that maybe Babs just has more guts than him, and that maybe he was just afraid of confronting a hurt child—maybe there was just too much past in it.

"How are you?" Barbara asks the girl quietly, while the others made small talk (Hope generally dislikes small talk to begin with, but now she _hates _it, hates how they're all acting like Bruce isn't _dying_) with the man lying in the bed. Hope imagines the old woman with the red hair that she knows she used to have: now it's just pure white. Fingers that still retain some of their old dexterity lightly take Hope's wrists, holding them together in front of her. "Sweetie, how are you?"

"I'm fine." The words come out hard, and like Dick, Barbara's eyebrows rise into her snowy hair. Hope's face is drawn tight, and whether she realizes it or not, she's making the same expression Bruce would have made, and the only difference is in the voice, really. Barbara will take none of this: she pulls the girl into her arms with a surprising amount of her strength and quickness left. Hope makes a tiny sound, a whimper from the center of her chest, and it's almost like a small choke. Her arms circle around the woman's neck, breathing in a smell that is so completely human that the girl shakes for a second. Hope can hear the woman's heart beating if she tries, so she doesn't try—the beats are not strong and powerful, but the pulse of a weakening older woman. They are not sounds she wants to hear, especially not in this kind of place.

Barbara has done what the rest of them were perhaps too cautious or too frightened to do, and the little girl shivers like a leaf (but does not cry). Her old, slightly knobby hands run through Hope's dark hair, soothing her. After a while she draws the girl back, and kisses her on the forehead while Hope's eyes, wide and the color of melting snow, watch her. "It's terrible," Hope says, voice wavering.

"I know, sweetie, I know. Come on." Barbara holds the girl's hand as she wheels to the side of Bruce Wayne's bed.

His breathing is coming harder now, and for those that can hear it: his heart is laboring, but slowing at the same time. For those that can't: the tiny blips and beeps on the nearest monitor say it all.


	4. A Legend Resurrected

** Author's Note:** This is the first more action-orientated scene in the fanfic. Here we see the real extent of Hope's powers, when she does choose to use them.

**

* * *

C.3**

Hope is shocked that no one is doing anything—everyone is just standing around crying. She knows that every adult in this room has a history to him or herself that revolves around _saving lives_, but to her all they seem to be doing is _watching._ It makes her angry, and worse than that, it confuses her. She's known about death, but again, only the things she's learned from movies and bugs and small animals. And now an image comes to her, from so long ago that she doesn't know how old she was—had to be younger than five.

The girl remembers herself sitting outside, with a robin cupped in her hands. Its wing had been broken and a few of its feathers were missing—she thought that she saw a cat lurking around there before she found the dying thing. Its heartbeat was weak, frantic, and Hope remembers the _sound_ of it, and if she listens, if she listens…

She can hear Bruce's heart.

Not much different now.

And she remembers knowing how scared the little creature was then; she could feel its fear trembling up into her fingers. Hope thought that she knew a way to help it: to help it let go of its hurt. She leaned in close, pulling the animal very near to her mouth, and inhaled—something shimmering, like bright smoke, emanated from the birds beak and eyes and feet. Its hurt and fear stopped then, and she remembered its heart stopped, too.

Her father had been there.

She hadn't known that he had been watching, but he had—and when she caught sight of him (he let in a little gasp, and she turned to see him standing behind her) he had looked at her with such pain and disappointment—and then turned away. Hope hadn't known (and now, with Bruce dying, she thinks she understands better), and all her father could do was walk away.

It hurts her to remember this and her hand tightens in Barbara's: Barbara misreads this, and squeezes back, offering some strength.

_But there was another part to the story,_ Hope tells herself, a small voice hissing from deep inside of her. She hates it though—hates using her powers, hates not being human, if only because _Bruce_ is human, and she loves him that much. Her young mind stretches back again, to that earlier time, the earliest concrete memory that she has. In her mind she sees herself crying that her father was so disappointed, sees herself lifting up the robin again, and this time putting some of that special kind of smoke _back into_ the bird's tiny body, taking it from herself to do it.

She remembers a heart coming alive in her hands, rubbery feet with tiny claws twitching to life—the quick, darting movement of beady, liquid looking eyes: and then glossy wings opening, red chest and all bursting from her hands, into the dark landscape of nearby trees. Hope remembers turning then, smiling, hoping to catch her father watching her now, hoping that he'll see this and _forgive_ her, be _proud_ of her (like Bruce is, always).

He wasn't there. He had gone back inside.

The annoying computer to her right starts making awful, fluttering beeping noises, and then flat-lines. Her mother breaks into a harsh sob (it's something that shocks Hope, because her mother is always, always strong) and her father clutches her to his chest, his face buried in Diana's dark hair, a gentle hand resting against the back of her neck, fingers slightly kneading at the roots of her hair. Dick turns away, face streaming, and Barbara dropped her chin to her chest.

Hope strains her ears.

In her gut she feels sick, feels old beyond her years, feels like the world is spinning beneath her feet: she strains her ears, but she can't heart his heart anymore.

While the adults are still each feeling the same grief, the same world-shaking _loss_, Hope tears the shoes from her feet. They are each caught in their own dizzying heartache, and that's why they don't notice her flash in the bright daylight—the sun pouring in from high windows and shining bright off her white dress. With a short kind of hop she is on Bruce Wayne's hospital bed, the light seeming to pool in the air around her, catching on her small body, in her hair, on the soles of her feet.

She leans forward, over his chest—she can see that shimmering, mirage-like smoke still lingering around the man's chest: she inhales, imagines herself holding the stuff in her mouth (and it takes like leather and roses and the smell of sandalwood). With her mouth pressed firm against his, she exhales with all the force in her eight-year-old body. Before she has time to even take in another gasping, gulping breath (this time of air, just air) she can feel the heart under her struggling to beat, and the computer is zipping along again.

Each adult looks up, shocked.

Hope lowers again, pushing, willing, feeding some of her spirit into the prone man, Bruce Wayne. It's as if she's trying to start a fire, and if she doesn't keep it supplied with air—or that special kind of soul-stuff, that smoke—it will extinguish, and this time there won't be even a mouthful left of his soul to bring back.

"Oh God, Clark." She hears her mother's voice, and there is a horror in it that chills Hope down to the bone, but she does not stop. The child has a certain _steel_ in her, determination dealt out in spades, and even the terrified gasps around the room do not stop her. The light is definitely, without a doubt, bent around the bed now, and Clark can feel the darkness on his skin—can feel the absence of the light in his bones. He watches how she is sucking the light into herself (_and_ _breathing into Bruce_, he thinks), and it's like staring at a solar eclipse.

There is a tremor near his heart, because seeing this, seeing her drawing in the sun like that—though he's never been able to do what she is now—he knows that she is his in that way. Now he is terrified, just like the rest of them; there is something unspeakable about not letting the dead rest. He steps forward, and he senses that his daughter senses him—he reaches out, and quickly pulls his hand back, wincing. The pain is immense.

She's built a wall around herself.

They can see her, but even he can't do anything to stop her.

Or maybe it's that he's praying, praying that maybe, just _maybe…_

Hope has him breathing again—Bruce Wayne is alive, and his soul is back in his body. However, right now it is resting, a deep, deep sleep. A sleep it will not recover from (not within the confines of his body, at least) if she can't fix his heart. With the bird it had been so much easier… The body had been small, the life so much less complex. Already Hope is exhausted, and she's horrified, knowing what she has to do.

_There isn't any other choice,_ she hard talks herself, and her fingers slip into his chest, through his sternum; its as if all the flesh and bone simply accepts her inside, like moving a knife through butter.

Time in the room stops, and everyone is holding their breath with waiting.

She pulls the heart out of his body, as if there isn't bone or skin blocking it. As if there weren't arteries and veins attached: as if it won't kill him. The organ, beating like in some cheap sci-fi horror movie, smells disgusting to her—she realizes that it's because it doesn't have the normal, earthy-salty smell of fresh blood, but it smells like whatever chemicals he's been taking.

The girl raises the heart to her mouth, and sucks out the blood that it hasn't pumped out onto her dress, which is now splattered with red, her hands crimson up to the elbows. Dick Grayson clutches at a table behind him for support, but he isn't quick enough—he goes down pretty hard, right on the seat of his jeans. His eyes are wide, but his mouth is wider. Hope spits out the bad, Morphine-poisoned blood (it pours down her chin, again, like a low-budget horror flick) in mouthfuls, and it takes about three turns before she is satisfied.

Diana and Clark are paralyzed, and Diana imagines that she sees the scar tissue built up on the heart, sees how poorly it must have been running for the past years. She imagines that as her daughter drains the heart of the blood it held, that it seems to be beating _stronger_, _healthier._ It isn't her imagination.

Hope sucks off the remaining bad blood (it stings her mouth and she feels her mouth and lips and throat go numb) and then, where an artery should be, blows into the heart. She does this until she is nearly faint from lack of oxygen to her brain, and then does it again, and again. Each time, the pulse is steadier. Each time, some of the scar tissue has faded, healthy and flesh-pink again.

She is wearing down fast now, depleted of all her energy—both physical and spiritual. Clark can feel the sort of energy field around his daughter and Bruce begin to ebb, but doesn't dare move yet. The circulation of energy, life force, whatever it is that Hope had drawn up, is moving slower now. Delicate as ever, she sets the heart back into it's place, and when she draws her hands back the flesh is unmarred—well, no, it's pock-marketed with an assortment of scars, but nothing fresh and bleeding, nothing new.

They think that it is done, that is _has_ to be done, but it isn't just yet. The girl places her hands on the man's shoulders, and Barbara, who is closest now, thinks she can actually hear the bones there creaking as they grow _younger_, straighter again. Hope runs her hands up behind Bruce Wayne's head (and as her hands pass, his skin seems to lose years, his cheeks look fuller, his brow less furrowed). She clutches at his loose white hair (and as they watch, the two handfuls she takes become thicker, dark again) and pulls his body forward, towards her. Again her mouth goes down to his, and this time, instead of forcing life into him, she pulls—drawing the poison Morphine out.

Once it reaches her mouth she gags, leans over the side of the bed, and promptly vomits—a mixture of a small, hasty breakfast, blood, and clear, sharp smelling chemicals. As if on cue, Bruce Wayne follows suit—only his is much more of the latter than anything else. He lies back, blinking and _breathing._

Though he doesn't know what happened, and remembers something about soothing, peaceful _rest_—he has to say, that even with his throat burning and numb at once, this is the best he's felt in years. He breathes, listens to his heart, and the sound of both coming so easily and so unhindered puts him back to sleep.

_It smells like water lilies,_ is his first conscious thought, but then that is lost in the promise of rest.

The machines that he is still attached to confirm that yes, not only is Bruce Wayne alive, but his pulse is steady, and all vital signs are go.

Even more emotionally, physically, spiritually taxed Hope feels her body fall back, and under her she feels Bruce's legs. Without any choice in the matter, she falls into a coma like sleep, which she will not wake from for three days. Her small body is matted with sticky, drying blood and Morphine.

Not knowing whether they are watching a devil or a saint, the adults look back and forth between the sleeping man—who was dead as a doorknob not twenty minutes before—and the little girl that had pulled his heart out of his chest to save him. They do not know what to make of it, but she is crying now—she is crying in her sleep.

Her dress is no longer white.


	5. Death and Destiny: A Child

** Author's Note:** Sorry if this portion seems to bounce around a lot, just trying to fill in some of Hope's character, round her out a bit. Contains a sort-of flash back to the scene after Bruce's resurrection, in case you were, by chance, curious.

* * *

**C.4**

Hope has reached the painful, awkward age of 12, and it is all the more unpleasant for all her fame—and her powers. Since she was very small (particularly after the incident in which she killed, and then brought back to life, a small bird) she has gone about suppressing those powers. The only major exception (and it was most certainly a _major _exception) was four years ago, in a Gotham hospital; Hope revived, in a rather astounding and disturbing display of supernatural healing powers, the famous—and just shortly before deceased—Bruce Wayne.

Clark Kent (which is now Superman's permanently adopted name, making Hope's last name Kent-Prince) was further alienated from his daughter after such a scene: not the beginning of the process (which seemed to be in motion even when she was a small infant, no one's fault in particular) but a quite large step within it. His daughter is conflicted—needs, secretly, in the darkest, most hidden places of her young heart, her father's unquestioning and relentless love (she has this and accepts it already from her mother). Just as fierce as this need for his clear show of love is, however, Hope wants and craves independence from him, separation of the most severe kind.

This type of isolation from an adult is what is most often attributed to young boys—the desperate paradox of need for approval that battles incessantly with the commanding fear of living in a parent's (most often a father's) shadow. Hope hates the want to prove herself, but just as much so she detests that others would have predisposed judgments of her (so what that they are, by and large, forged from a positive bias?).

The girl is filled with a certain self-reliance and all the same, a self-loathing. Hope does not blame her father for feeling uncomfortable around her—after all, he never asked for a daughter that can suck life from a creature, or infuse it instead. She understands his distance, whether it is on his part subconscious or not—he, as well as Diana and Bruce, has each faced "super-villains" in their time, and though she has never met or seen one, Hope knows of them, knows in her gut her father's real fear about her powers.

And what better fodder for a mass murderer than the prodigy of two (or three) of the single most legendary superheroes? A super-villain that not only has the reflexes, physical prowess, and may tug the heartstrings of many of her foes, but also the ability to drain or instill life at a wish—combined, for measure, with some of the Batman's detective training, if not his instinct? The girl of course does not think that she would ever use her powers to cause harm to anyone (she hates the whole idea of using them at all, really), but she is not stupid: there are ways of turning good men and women bad, and sometimes the whole progression (or regression) from noble to savage is unnoticeable until it is upon a person. Hope has heard many stories, if not from her rather protective parents, then from the younger members of the JLU, who like to spin tales that are often as much fiction as truth, though in the world of superheroes, fiction might as well be truth to start with anyway.

She does not, cannot, blame her father, and so instead, with all the conviction of a young girl coming unto the age of puberty, she instead blames herself. It is this same predicament that often leaves ruinous wastelands in place of childhoods; this solitary reliance on one's self coupled with personal guilt that makes or breaks men and women. Guilt with dependency on one's self (and one's self alone), is after all, the diving line that separates the villains from, say, those that prefer to fight crime while dressed as bats.

After bringing Batman back to life, and herself being revived from a dead-like sleep some days after, there had been a talk between mother, father, and daughter.

"Hope," Her mother had started, in the way that the girl knew that she had done something wrong, but was forgiven on account of ignorance (the same voice that said, however, that further mistakes of the like would not pass by so easily). "We're not mad at you, you know that right?" The child had nodded, eyes still wide with the fear of disproval, looking between her mother and father, who were each watching her with grim, haggard expressions.

"What you did was very brave, sweetheart," Diana said, and took her hand with a tired smile. Hope was busy watching her father out of the corner of her eyes: Clark seemed to be at crossroads, regarding his daughter in a way that he never had before, and so let his wife speak—not so unusual. "You aren't in trouble." Hope felt her eyes start to water then, and the vision of her mother was blurred. Clark, upon seeing this, took his cue and went to his little girl, at once recognizing his daughter as the young, lost thing she was (and in some ways, still is), and was ashamed of himself: he went to Hope, pulled her small form to him, his impossibly strong arm holding her firm. She cried into his chest, very different from the girl she had been the day she had saved Bruce: where she had seemed made of something unyielding and invincible (_steel_, of course, would be the witty input), she was now small and vulnerable. For one of the more infrequent moments, they were perfectly father and perfectly daughter, together.

"Hope, you aren't in trouble, we aren't mad—but you can't do what you just did. Not… like that." Diana was trying to stay calm, trying to find a good, solid reason that a child would be able to grasp. She doesn't want this just to be about an adult dictating what a child may or may not do—she wants Hope to understand this. _Even though you don't understand it yourself,_ Diana had thought to herself. _Good Hera, Aphrodite, Athena—the girl can bring humans back to life, can make them younger! We never even knew!_

Hope won't ask why, but it is very clear that she wants too. Diana feels that when she is with Hope, she is constantly reminded of Bruce; Hope will ask maybe in the most desperate of situations, but would always rather try to observe and piecework her own answer than ask.

"Its… humans die, Hope. It may make a lot of people sad, but it's not something that should be toyed with-" There is a flash in her daughter's eyes, and Diana knows that she hasn't chosen the right words, and is reminded of her daughter's temper and sense of pride—not all of which, Diana thinks in an almost self-satisfied way, is from Bruce.

"I wasn't-"

"I know, dear. We know. What you did you did because you love uncle Bruce," Hopes nose wrinkles at the familial term, disliking it for a reason that neither Diana nor Clark have ever known. "And no one can blame you for that, but you can't stop death." But that was it, wasn't it? She _could _stop death. And if it was within the girl's power to be able to do such a thing, didn't that mean that the Fates at least had some plan for her? Or that maybe she was set a little apart from fate itself, and maybe could alter it at her own will? If it _was_ her power, then maybe it was right that she use it.

Just the possibilities gave Diana a headache. _Don't think about it. Whether or not she's destined, if destiny is the word, to use what she has, she's just a child now. _

"It has far-reaching consequences. Like… you know how you've been studying the food chain and natural cycles?" Hope nodded, knew where Diana was going with it, and didn't intervene. "How if you take out one animal, or plant, the whole cycle can suffer? Hope, that's what this is like. Sometimes if you change something you're not supposed to change, there can be really bad consequences. I know it doesn't seem like it will be bad because you saved him-"

"But," And at the sound of Hope's voice interrupting, Diana arches her eyebrows and listens. "But how do _you_ know that I wasn't supposed to change it?" Hope felt her father's body tighten against her, tensed, and then watched as her mother seemed to be at a loss for words, caught off guard for a second. "How can you know? You've told me stories of the Fates, and so have the other Amazon women, the one time I went before, that I remember: and how can you know that the Fates didn't _want_ me to do it?" Hope's voice was not accusatory, but rather confused: she was a child that was thinking possibly a step ahead of her mother, by thinking with childlike simplicity. Her young brow had been furrowed with confusion, torn between questioning her mother and questioning, in essence, fate.

These are the types of questions that men and women have spent lifetimes trying to find the answers to, a small handful successful, and the vast majority without any such luck, and already Hope had found herself at her first great trial of faith—was fate something that could be molded, that everyone had a hand in, or was it something to leave well enough alone? It was a question that would plague her for the rest of her life.

It is no small wonder that Diana would be surprised to have such a question sprung on her so soon.

"Hope, you must not intervene in the lives of mortals. You can never know the consequences of what will happen-"

"But-"

"Please listen to your mother Hope-"

"But that's so… so… hypocritical!" Hope jumped away from the couch where she had been sitting with her father, standing flushed and now angry, with her hands clenched into fists. Diana and Clark share a glance, and they both think: _That's a word Bruce taught her, of course._ What hurt most however was that she used the word correctly, and had caught them both with it, not quite unlike a magic lasso.

"You two intervened all the _time_ with the lives of mortals; y_ou were superheroes!_ You saved people! And before I was born, you even got in _trouble_ because there were too _many_ of you trying to change other people's lives!" Hope yelled, full of righteous anger that neither of her parents can deny was well placed. Diana lowered her head, rubbed at her temple for a moment, while Clark sighed.

"There is a difference between saving someone's life and bringing them back from the dead," Clark said, and masked the uncertainty in his voice with the weight of parental authority. There was a sickened feeling in his gut when he did it, which let him know that his conscience didn't like the idea of covering up his ignorance by playing father.

"Then what is it?" Hope spat, angry at her father and mother for not being able to explain themselves, angry at herself because she had met their disapproval when she had thought that she had done the only thing that she should be expected to do when Bruce was dying, and angry because of how _confusing_ it was. There was also the matter of the fact that she had saved Bruce's life, and though her mother had insisted she wasn't in trouble, they had still acted like she had done something terribly wrong.

"Hope, don't talk to you father that way. Now sit down." Her mother's voice was sharp and clear, and Hope knew that she had ridden anger as far as it would take her for that day—obeying (but not without a perfectly disgusted expression) the girl sat, away from both of them.

"You know your father and I always want for you to practice your powers, because they are a part of you and aren't something to be ashamed of. We don't want you to be ashamed of what you can do, how you can… bring people back, but there are too many consequences to it, do you understand?" Diana said firmly, while still trying to get an air of lofty authority. She looked beautifully hassled and harried, as any Amazon mother might.

_No,_ Hope thought bitterly. _No, I don't understand, but I don't think you do either. He,_ she shot a particularly sour look at her father, _especially doesn't understand. He _hates_ it._

"We don't want you using _that_ power, Hope. Not because you should be ashamed of it or afraid of it, but because there are too maybe bad possibilities, and because you're not old enough to be responsible for the consequences," Diana felt that she had put that part of it very well, without demeaning her daughter or her daughter's ability—but her heart sank into her stomach at the dark look on Hope's face, as if storm clouds were gathering in her eyes. The tension in the room rose considerably, and Diana and Clark had both felt a certain 'crackle' in the air, that let them know that their daughter was almost uncontrollably furious.

Instead of screaming and throwing a tantrum (which both adults would have much more preferred, and would have been more normal of a child her age) the young girl stood up silently, with a deadly intense glint in her eyes. When she spoke it was with a seething, vicious tone (_As if,_ Clark thought, to his own heartache, _she thinks she's surrounded by liars and cowards_).

"I saved him. I saved Bruce Wayne, because I love him, and I think you both love him too, but you're stupid and you think that we can outsmart fate. If fate didn't want Bruce Wayne alive, he wouldn't be. You don't even _care_ that he's alive because of what I did—you're only afraid." Her lower lip trembled, but the girl didn't cry. "I hate my powers anyway, and I don't care if I don't use them. I hate them and I'd rather have been born without them, if that makes either of you feel better." Still not crying, but with her lip now nearly seizing with the effort to hold back tears, Hope turned and left her parents, walking quickly up the stairs without running.

There was a 'zap!' which Diana and Clark later realized was their daughter opening the door to her room (the energy had taken outlet on the doorknob, which was burnt black and later had to be changed). She did not speak more than a sentence to her parents at a time for nearly two weeks—which is almost a century for a young child to hold a grudge.

That night has affected Hope's childhood severely, though there was perhaps never any doubt that it would. Now she sits reading a comic (in the fork of a tree, slightly distanced from some sort of reunion or baby-shower or birthday, the even doesn't matter, just that there are various meta-humans strolling through, along with groups of their offspring), something older, pre-Crisis—and the Crisis is something she has a hard time understanding, other than it was like blowing out the lower two floors of a three floor building in order to have just a lobby: or she thinks of it like Connect-Four, and if you pull the level at the bottom, all the pieces fall out, except in this case, you were left with one row at the bottom. She always associates the Crisis with different layers of something collapsing in, until only one is left. She's found that no one likes to explain it any better to her, so she doesn't ask them to.

At first Hope never really liked comics (and it's still a toss up of whether she likes them, or simply feels obliged to read them). She knows that humans write about people like her father and mother and Bruce, and has a vague understanding that all of it is true, and at the same time that none of it is. Sometimes she wonders if her father or mother would exist without humans to write about them, thinks that maybe Superman really is an alien and all, but without Joe Shuster to dream of him landing in Kansas, then maybe he never would have.

It hurts her head to think that maybe they only exist in a funny sort of way, and that when people stop writing these things, then maybe her mother and father (and herself) will all turn into mortals, just everyday—or maybe they will all fade into nothingness? She wonders what people write about her, but comics are pretty hard to come by where she lives, so she doesn't complain. Hope has the feeling that her mom and dad wouldn't really be comfortable with her reading the comics, their pasts.

She buys them (or rather, Bruce Wayne buys them for her) when she is in Gotham, and she often spends hours at a time pouring over them with fierce scrutiny and study, laid out on the floor, while Batman (and this is when he still is, in his own way, Batman) does something in another part of the house, something in the basement which isn't really a basement but a massive cave. Hope is allowed down there, and Bruce has even showed her and explained some of the less complicated (which, in comparison to his other tools and machines doesn't say much) workings, but she doesn't like it. She finds it too cold and damp, and much prefers any area of the house where the curtains can be pulled back, with bright sunlight shining through.

Bruce has noticed the girl's preference of soaking in sunlight, and it doesn't surprise him: one example of this was one time that she was swimming in a large outdoor pool of his, not too long after his 'resurrection'. The rays seemed to bend around her, hade made the small girl look like an angel of some kind, or a goddess. Bruce has smirked to himself: she got the craving for sunlight from her father, obviously, and having an Amazon princess for a mother didn't exactly hurt the idea that she could be a demi-goddess in training.

Hope remembers one time when she was reading her comics in her room in the Wayne Manor, the sunlight streaming in and the lower windows (the high wall was nearly covered with them, all the way to the top) were cracked to let the fresh air in. Bruce stopped in her doorway, watching her the way adults will often watch children—unwilling to break their young, focused attention and instead slowly enjoying it. When Hope had caught sight of him out of the corner of her eyes, she had turned and smiled, welcoming him in. Bruce could (and now still can) move without his cane: something that she would always remember about what she did for him that night in the hospital—not only had the girl brought him back to life, but it seemed that she had given him some of hers for a time being, and while he was not nearly the man he once was, Bruce walked more freely, less bent.

"Why do you read those?" He had asked her. "Do you like the adventures?" Hope had bit her bottom lip, her brow furrowing lightly.

"It's not just that. I like the adventures, but it's like… looking at a family tree." Her face tightened and pulled even more, stretching for the right word. "It's like an anthology of my what my parents did in their world." Bruce had laughed then, a good, hearty laugh that even Hope wasn't too accustomed to hearing (though in truth she heard it more often than others). He had asked her where she learned that word, told her she was right, exactly right, and went on laughing until he had to wipe a tear from his left eye. She didn't understand it then, and even now doesn't. _Maybe it's one of those things you only understand if you're grown-up,_ she thought.

Hope hadn't put the things down since, reading them in the sunshine where she could, or at night on her bed in Kansas if she couldn't. Now she is curled up in the fork of a tree some ten feet off the ground, trying to stay out of the party. It's not that Hope doesn't like all of them—there are a few she is sort-of friends with—but it's the way they look at her and watch her, holding their breath all the while, as if she'll suddenly do something amazing and if they blink they'll miss it. She knows it's because she has the most impressive lineage out of the lot of them, and knows too that it's because she _won't_ use her powers that they watch so closely.

And of course, there are the handful that do their best (when the adult's aren't looking, naturally) to provoke her into using those powers—Hope tries her hardest not to give them what they want.


	6. The Promises Children Make

**Author's Note**: I'm bad, and I don't update often. Thank you to JRK, who kindly let me know I need to get my ass back in gear. Sorry folks, summer just drains so much of the creative energy out of me.

* * *

**C.5**

Her current read is one of the older Batman comics: she treats it carefully, and in her mind she is carried far beyond the story that the bright yellows and reds and blues would give away. The sun dapples her long, somewhat unruly dark hair and her skin through the leaves. Hope is so absorbed that she does not realize a small group of her peers walking towards her: exactly the ones that find nothing more amusing than annoying her, and even go as far as to try to pick fights.

She smells the smoke first, and then sees the flames eating at the middle of her comic, devouring the story so that Hope is momentarily afraid that she'll be caught inside. Quickly she drops the text, which then stops burning, but is obviously ruined. Gritting her teeth at the sound of snickers and giggles, Hope looks over to the children—there are four, three boys and a girl.

The ringleader, of course, is a kid named Tommy: he is also the fire-starter. Hope feels like she can see right through him, and feels like she knows exactly what makes him tick (she does have a certain way with doing that). This boy, with his strange tallness and knobby knees—not to mention self-dyed bright red hair—feels like he needs to harass her in order to prove himself, because his parents aren't old-line superheroes. Both his mother and father had certain abilities, but they were also born during the meta-human 'boom', making them rather un-unique. He feels like he has to make up for that.

"Oh, I'm sorry, were you reading that?" Tommy mocks, his pale face twisted in an ugly expression of false sympathy. "Must be because _you'll_ never do any of those things!" Hope smiles to herself, thinks of the day in the hospital when Bruce died: _No Tommy, not me,_ she thinks.

"Leave me alone."

"Leave her alooone, hear that? You're such a crybaby, you'd never know your father was Superman," This time it isn't Tommy but his friend, another boy named Matt. Matt, unlike Tommy, can claim some old-line heritage: his grand-father was Oliver Queen, his grand-mother Dinah Lance.

"Well maybe he really _isn't_, right?" This input comes from Sarah, a girl with strange, unattractive gray hair (as far as Hope knows, she has some limited—very limited—telekinetic abilities). Even while the girl, whose face is sort of mouse-like, implies such a thing about Hope's family, she looks over her shoulder, obviously afraid that she'd be caught at it. They all laughed timid, nervous laughs, making sure that their parents wouldn't hear them. Hope rolls her eyes climbs out of the tree, making sure to do so even slower and more carefully that a regular human would, because it irritates them that she doesn't use her powers—they think that in doing so, she's trying to make out that she's better than them.

_And while I am,_ she thinks to herself, _that's not why._

"Batman?" Tommy sneers, and before she can snatch up what remains of her comic, the boy has sprung out in front of her, brandishing the burnt thing in front of her eyes. "What a joke!" Though she knows it's what he wants, what each of them wants (even Elliot, the quiet one at the furthest end of their pack), Hope feels her hands tighten in anger. Though he may not be too clever, Tommy's eyes are sharp—they pick out the tension in her body even as she fights to release it.

"Give me the comic, Tommy." She does not look at him yet, feels the words hiss out from between her clamped jaws. Give her a few years, and she will have the tone down, the _Don't-Fuck-With-Me_ command under her belt with along with a million others. Now, however, the boy Tommy and his friends laugh, and he dances another step out of reach, though Hope hasn't moved a muscle. She knows, by this point, that she's lost.

"I mean, it's pretty funny, really. How everyone used to treat him like he was something really great, someone really powerful, and all he ever was, was just another human in a _world_ of humans." Matt laughs, jittery and nervous—the other two are too afraid to even do that.

"That's pretty tough talk, Tommy." Hope snickers, laughing in a dark way that causes the boys voice to falter. _Because that's all this is: talk. And none of you would dare say this around the adults, because you know the respect your parents have for him,_ Hope thinks to herself, knowing that it would be best to just walk away. Very suddenly, however, she finds that she _can't_ just walk away, doesn't _want_ to leave without at least shaming them. "Your mother know you speak like that?"

"Don't you talk about my mother," He chokes out, fists clenched. Hope can see that they are smoking,

Hope knows that his taunts are based on his own insecurity, and she doesn't care. _Why should I have to care?_ She asks herself. There is a moment where she is captured by the lure of self-pity: that she should always be forced to act more responsible than her peers, that she has always been treated older than she is, expected to be more than her age. _I'm tired of being the prodigal-freaking-child! _She knows that it would be better, more mature, for her to forgive Tommy his fault—but that is now the last thing that she wants to do.

What Hope wants to do, is to cut him as deeply as she can.

She tries her hand at wrenching the raw nerves of the boy's emotions.

"I guess you _would_ feel like you have to settle scores with a man who's served the Justice League longer than both your parents _combined_," Hope isn't quite sure if this is true, but relishes the look of astonished hate on the boys face. "I mean, I just suppose that it goes with being a part of, well, your _kind._" The three of Tommy's friends stand stock still, unsure of what has just happened, knowing that Hope has turned the tables, and not knowing what to do about it. They watch their appointed leader, Tommy the pyrokinetic, with their mouths ajar.

"Take it back," He grunts, and Hope smiles, looks up at him for the first time. From under her wild dark hair two pale, chilling eyes peer out, her mouth twisted into a terrible smirk.

"No."

There is a pause, and then Tommy bolts at her—predictable, the way a bull would charge. Hope does not use her powers, but merely steps out of the way; while she does this, her hands come up quick and sharp, catching the boy's wrists and wrenching them up towards his shoulder blades. With a sharp cry of pain and confusion, the extra momentum carries him to the ground, with Hope quickly following, pulling his arms so far up that she wonders how much farther it would take to break them. Tommy hits the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of himself, and writhes there, trying to lessen the pain in his arms and shoulders.

The others, for all their talk, do nothing at first.

Then a terrible, ear-splitting noise seems to rise in the air around then, and Hope's grip loosens. She turns only in time to see Matt's mouth open, and his arms pull her away from his friend. _Damn your mother and damn hers and hers,_ she has time to think, but cannot defend herself—the noise was too disorientating, and for a moment she thought she may pass out. Matt stopped, and lifted her away from Tommy, holding her firm.

_If you use your powers, you can be out of this,_ Hope tells herself. But she won't use them, tells herself that she won't. If Bruce Wayne never needed them to be Batman, then why should she need them? She knows, however, that this is perhaps skewed logic, not a road she wants to go down.

Tommy cusses as he stands, wiping blood away from a cut lip. The harsh words sound comical coming from his young mouth, and his bright eyes flash when he sees her. Hope can tell that none of them are really sure of what to do: they had not expected this, had not expected her to retaliate—thought that she'd just take there taunts for another day and that they'd be back eating cake and drinking fruit punch in no time.

"So when _is_ Batman going to just give up and kick it, huh?" Again, Hope feels her anger rising, knows that she should just laugh in Tommy's face, and can't. _You can't control what pushes your buttons, Hope, _she tries to console herself. But that doesn't mean that she shouldn't try, does it? Still, she knows that she can't fight that anger because, honestly, she doesn't want to. For one of the few times in her life she is angry at something that she can _deal_ with, and with that kind of focus, her anger is stronger, a force that is hard to deny. "The man must be nearly a hundred by _now_."

Hope knows that the kid doesn't know what he is saying, doesn't understand that weight of it, but she can't bring herself to forgive him his words. Images of Bruce Wayne on a hospital bed, Bruce Wayne struggling for breath, Bruce Wayne dead, a shell—it is impossible for her to forgive that. She elbows Matt's gut hard and fast, finds it difficult to dumb her powers down, increasingly harder to stay at a human level. The boy is holding her tight, and though her hit hurts him, it isn't enough to make him let go.

"You're pathetic, you're nothing!" Hope snarls at the boy in front of her. Tommy still has blood dripping down his chin, and his teeth are stained red when he smiles, a sharks grin.

"Really though, someone should just put the old man out of his misery," Tommy hisses. Hope can feel Matt's stomach clench, hears his heart beating faster: the others are scared now, know that this has gone beyond just a children's game.

"Come on Tom, maybe we should just lay off this. It's stupid, someone's going to get hurt," Matt says, and his arms loosen around Hope.

"So what? Then I'll be known as the one who beat Superman's kid-"

"You can't believe that Tommy. You can't be serious." Matt's voice is shocked, worried. He lets go of Hope completely, as if to say that he will have no more part in it.

"You heard him," Hope growls, her lips pulled back in a fierce smile. "Tommy really just wants a piece of Superman. Little boy wants to _prove_ himself." Tommy dives for her, and again she moves just in time, feeling the air sizzle as he passes. "For all that talk about Batman, he's gotten closer to that mark than you certainly ever will."

Hope watches Tommy's lanky body spin, watches his hands come up, engulfed in flames. Without thinking, as fire swallows her body, the girl shields herself. The reaction is unconscious, a self-preserving instinct, and it does indeed save her from being burned. The other children scream at Tommy, unable to comprehend that their leader of sorts is actually out for blood this time. In that moment, they see Hope (shining brilliant and bathed in flames) for what she is: the prodigal child, possibly the most powerful being to be born here on home-team Earth. Her body is protected by a glowing, a shield made from life itself as the sunlight (and nearby, less-rooted plants) each bend towards her, around her, impenetrable. The flames burn at nothing but air around her, licking and grasping at her limbs without success.

Elliot and Sarah turn without hesitation, run (Hope later finds that they were unable to tell the adults what had happened for fear of Tommy). Matt is paralyzed, cannot intervene and cannot run and follow his other companions. Hope sees the world through a curtain of fire, making everything look rinsed orange. Her hair rises, as if weightless, tossed by non-existent wind. She smiles, shakes her head, and walks towards Tommy. Perhaps he realizes what he is doing, or perhaps he just realizes how ineffective it is; the flames die. Hope's hands find the collar of his T-shirt, and lift the boy effortlessly; close-up, he is hardly taller than she is, and when she isn't busy acting human, she is much stronger. Without really thinking, without trying, she is pulling the life out of him slowly—the boy feels like his chest is collapsing in on itself.

"Don't joke about death," Hope whispers to him, the way a lover might whisper to her partner, but underneath the feigned sweetness of it is plenty sickened, stomach-twisting bitterness—the muscles of her preteen body glisten, and her skin is full of light. She releases him (maybe realizing herself that this is not a road that she wants to start down) and he falls on his skinny knees before her. With pale hands his grasps the ground, digging his pale fingers into the singed earth, concentrating on breathing. "Batman was saving lives before you were even _thought_ of, and he will still be here long after you're gone, I promise you."

And it _is_ a promise that she makes to him.

She promises this also to herself.

Images come to her then, and whether they are the products of imagination or some kind of premonition, she does now know. Hope sees herself older, stronger, wild—Bruce Wayne is human, only human, and if she wants to bestow her life unto him, he is little more than powerless to stop her. She sees Bruce struggling, being made to accept youth, kept from aging—from ever growing old. Her stomach wrenches at the thought of forcing him into anything, and hot tears bite at the corners of her eyes, though she does not cry.

_Bruce Wayne will not die.  
I will make sure of it._


	7. Sweet Sixteen

**C.6**

Her sweet sixteenth birthday: Hope wakes up earlier than her parents, and curiosity lures her out of her bed, and down the stairs. She quickly makes sure that her parents _haven't_ planned any sort of surprise party (the idea of it makes her shudder), and is satisfied when she can't find any mass quantities of streamers or paper cups and plates. Diana and Clark of course would have loved to give Hope a huge birthday party, would have invited half the League and all—but Hope, who is maybe different from her childhood years, is not so different in that she still hates parties: parties where everyone always thinks they know so much about her, and always waiting anxiously for her to entertain them.

There are presents in the living room, mounds of them, presents from people she has always disliked and people she has never met. As always, Hope has the sneaking sensation that these people are merely trying to curry favor with her parents, rather than really trying to send her their care on her birthday. _And some of them,_ she thinks, _are not doing it just to get in good with Superman or Wonder Woman alone, but are already planning what best-buds they'll be with the daughter—after all, what better future insurance could there be?_

"Stop thinking like that." Hope whispers to herself, and in spite of her self-imposed maturity, she finds her hands drifting over the brightly wrapped things, turning some this way and that, looking for something, anything from Bruce. When she's gone halfway through the different piles, and light is starting to show, filling the windows of the houses, Hope knows that she should get back to bed—her parents will be disappointed if they know she's seen her mountains of gifts, and she has to remember to act surprised, if only for their sake. Slightly worried (though convincing herself that Bruce probably sent her an entire pile by himself, that she just hadn't gotten to it) Hope quickly and quietly goes back upstairs to her bed, and pretends to sleep.

Not too long afterwards, she can hear her parents wake, hears her mother's footsteps padding down the stairs and the start of the coffee machine, hears her father speaking softly with her, and they share a laugh. Hope thinks for a second that she could hear Bruce's name in there somewhere, but the conversation is lost as there is shuffling downstairs. There are footsteps, heavier, her father's, coming up the stairs, and Hope finds that smooth equilibrium that it takes to pretend one is asleep: her eyes are closed gently, not squinted, and her mouth just barely open. Of course, it's more difficult to fool her father than maybe someone else's father, and she even focuses on slowing her heart, just a bit.

"Hope?" He calls, gentle as always, and comes to her. With large hands, which are slowly beginning to lose the calluses of decades of rough work, her father brushes her hair back, and she turns to him, smiling. "Hey there birthday girl," Clark greets her in the way that he has greeted her once every year for the past fifteen years (ironically, as human tradition would have it, this wasn't said on her one true birthday).

"No surprise party or anything right?"

"No surprise party," Her father affirms, and laughs. "I don't know when you're going to grow out of not liking people, you know?" And though his voice is full of innocent mirth, Hope understands that this really is something that he thinks about. "Must be hanging around uncle Bruce too much."

"He's not my uncle," Hope groans, and her father laughs again: they go through the traces that they've both known for these years. "So anyway, what did he get me?" She knows that her father won't tell, that he likes the surprise maybe more than she does, but asks anyway. It only piques her interest further when her father half sighs and shakes his head—not in a completely joking manner.

"You'll see soon enough," He offers, and ends it with a smirk, though Hope imagines that there is a bit of something like nostalgia in it. _A bit of: my baby is growing up too fast,_ she thinks, but doesn't resent her father for it. "So, should I carry the birthday girl downstairs to her presents?"

"Please, I know how mom is. She'll be down there waiting with a camera to take three rolls of film of me in my pajamas—so that the both of you can show half the world." Hope grumbles this out in mock annoyance, and finishes with a smile. Her father does not disagree with this, even nods a bit. "I'll be down in a minute." After her father leaves, the teenaged girl nearly flies into her clothes, and in her haste yanks on a shirt first inside out, and then rights it. Fighting the urge to run and jump down all the stairs at once (and she has taught herself to do this, mostly without any help from her superhuman abilities) Hope confines herself to a steady walk, and pretends to still be wiping the sleep from her eyes as she enters the kitchen.

There is a large cake set up, and though her parents normally enforce a healthy eating habit for her (which she doesn't have a problem with—Hope was never too fond of junk food to begin with) her birthday is the only day a year where she can start off with something so sugary and unhealthy. Her parents sing her Happy Birthday, and though Hope wishes Bruce were there to sing with them, she knows that he has pressing issues back in Gotham (and also knows that the fact that he is missing her birthday because of them is undoubtedly making him a very difficult person to be around right then). To her knowledge, Bruce Wayne's own company, as well as other companies within the city that he had always been active in, is trying to unseat him—ready to rip all his influence and power out from under him. This isn't really shocking, though it does inspire a dull anger in Hope: after what happened a decade and a half ago, there was a rush to remove meta-humans from power—and though Bruce Wayne is nothing but human, his presence still makes them uneasy.

The day goes smoothly enough, and Hope spends nearly three hours just to open her gifts. There are only a rare few that she finds are things that she will ever make use of—the rest is mostly either stuff thrown in just to give her parents a laugh, completely random tidbits from the more eccentric Justice League members, and even a good deal of clothes (most of which Hope plans to donate to a local orphanage, as soon as the chance arises). It isn't merely the opening that takes so long, but also the recording: a list (which is now several pages long) is made with the name of each gift-sender, as well as their present—though Hope enjoys her birthdays, the process of sending thank-you letters (which her mother has insisted on since she was old enough to write them) is quite possibly the most dreaded thing of her progressing life.

Finally, with the last gifts unwrapped and sorted, Hope sits with a scowl on her face, doing a mental check over her presents: Bruce Wayne's was not among them. Bruce would _never_ forget to send her a present—she knows that, as sure as she knows that the sun rises in the east, and that moss grows on the north side of trees (as long as you're in the northern hemisphere). A horrible, fleeting idea passes before her mind: What if Bruce Wayne has died? What if Bruce is dead, and her parents feared to tell her, in case what happened eight years ago would happen again? Her father saves her from this brief anguish by sighing, and looking towards her mother.

Almost as if on cue, Hope hears the sound of a helicopter, or many helicopters, their wings beating hard and heavy in the air.

"What's that?" Hope asks, concerned but not afraid—her parents do not look shocked or worried, but merely hold each other's hands.

"We were thinking about sending your uncle's present back," Her mother says, looking at her father out of the corner of her eyes. Hope looks anxiously between the two of them, and knows that the helicopters and Bruce's present have something to do with each other. "But we decided that that would be… too over-protective."

"Here you go, kid." Clark hands her a small present, wrapped neatly in dark red paper that is almost satiny to the touch. The noise of the helicopters distracts her, and she wonders what would be inside of such a small present that they would ever think about sending back-

-and then she understands.

_And you're supposed to be bright,_ Hope tries to scold herself, but doesn't have the heart too—her fingers are working fast, tearing away the expensive wrapping paper, until what's left is a small leather case. Unable to stop the yell that climbs it's way into her throat, Hope let's out a whooping howl when she seems the emblem engraved on the dark leather front: a rearing silver horse, mane and tail flying. Without hesitating, she pops open the case to find a perfectly nestled key, attached to a key-chain with the same Ferrari logo.

She's on her feet without thinking, running for the front door (hurdling over the piles of sorted presents). Within moments she is standing outside in their expansive front lawn, watching a huge helicopter touch down—a helicopter that is so loud that it could drown out the sound of several smaller ones. It is black, sleek looking despite its size: perfectly and undoubtedly sent by Bruce. When the side hatch opens, several men stand back as a bright, cherry red Ferrari purrs its way down the ramp, coming to a stop not far from the family of Kents (or, to be wholly correct, Kent-Prices). Hope is barely listening as a man comes to her, shakes her hand, starts riddling off facts. She catches that it's a 2015 (making it about a year or so before its release date) 12-cylinder Maranello convertible.

Bruce Wayne _always_ gives the best presents.

It is at this point that Hope begins to plan her first great journey—Clark and Diana both recognize the almost-wild look in her eyes, and know that inch by inch, Hope is preparing to shrug off their values and morals, so that she can learn them for herself, the way every child must before they become an adult. It's not an easy thing to see for any parent, and no parent is ever _really_ ready for their child's first great freedom, but they know better than to stand in their daughter's way. Part of Clark, and part of Diana as well, resents this gift, feels sullen and somewhat sour anger at Bruce for this. On one hand, it is an amazing (and of course stylish) birthday gift for their now 16-year-old daughter: on the other hand, however, neither of them would deny that it's also a message, loud and clear.

The message is that Hope must be allowed to decide her own fate, must be allowed to progress and grow for herself, must—if she is to be a leader, if she is to live up to the name that she was born with—be allowed perhaps greater freedoms than Diana and Clark feel ready (and, as before: no parent is ever _really _ready) to permit.

Ironically, or maybe as some kind of appeasement, knowing that his main gift will certainly not sit well with Hope's parents: Bruce also sends another fairly expensive present—a small cellular phone with unprecedented access, able to receive service from inside of a lead building, or under stories of mountains, with a plan that supports calls from all over the globe.

Clark, despite his slight nausea, has to stifle a laugh.


	8. Seedy Districts

**C.7**

Hope leaves that night, after her parents have gone to bed. She has never done something so singularly daring in her life—she doesn't consider what happened in the hospital with Bruce to have been daring, just what had to be done. Her heart beats so loud in her ears that she swears it could wake either of her parents (and unlike other children and teenagers, this happens to be something that might, under many circumstances, be a possibility). What she takes is a backpack with roughly a hundred dollars (she could take more, but something more adventurous in her decides that if she ends up spending all of that or losing it, then she can devise a way to get some more money), a couple clean shirts, shorts, a pair of jeans, a few pairs of underwear, and socks. It isn't well planned or well put-together, and the fact that it's so rushed and uncoordinated helps Hope feel more and more like she's going on an adventure.

Once outside (keys in hand, her cell phone left on her bedroom dresser, so that she can't be tracked by satellite and whatnot), the teenager seems puzzled at first: how to get the car far away from the house, so that her parents won't hear the engine (being what it is, the engine isn't exactly quiet). Deciding that she can forgive herself to use her powers, Hope bites her bottom lip, puts her hands to the smooth, slightly cool surface of the back bumper. For a moment she hesitates, doesn't know if she can _really_ move a car, even if she is fortunate enough to where the mostly flat ground slopes very gently downhill from her home. _You're the daughter of Wonder Woman and Superman,_ she peps herself, braces her arms. _You're practically _made_ for this kind of stuff._ At first she lifts and pushes, and the weight seems insurmountable, and she wonders for the briefest of seconds, if maybe she's lost all her powers, if maybe she's human now.

The idea doesn't distress her, but she does feel a flutter of panic in her stomach.

This time she lifts with the strength she _knows_ she has, strength coming up from her knees and back, as if wriggling itself up through her from the ground. Her teeth grind, and the back end of the car comes up easy, almost eerily so. Hope stops, actually shifts the weight all to one hand, and brushes her dark hair quickly from her face so that she can think. The car lurches forward (Superman's daughter or not, she is out of practice) and she hurries to catch it again, her molars grinding down hard against one another. With a half shrug and a short glance back, Hope starts down the long road that leads away from her house, half-rolling and half-carrying her new Ferrari.

By the time she thinks she is far enough from the house (but she never really thinks that she is, so it's rather whenever she can muster up the courage to make herself set down the car and climb in) Hope starts the engine, and with only the smallest fraction of a second of _what-have-I-gotten-myself-into_, she floors the gas pedal. With the windows down and night air blowing across her shoulders and chest (the top is not down—she figures she can learn how to do that sometime on the road), the teenager imagines that for once she may actually be grateful that her parents are such _influential_ people. Hope has had her Kansas unrestricted driver's license for all of three days now—her mother had simply scheduled her driving test three days before her 16 year mark, and no one had argued: if it wasn't for that piece of plastic with her picture stamped on it (in which even the daughter of two superheroes manages to look less than perfect), even she, with her new found sense of freedom, would not have the guts to go cross-country in a new—highly expensive—car, without telling her parents.

_They'll get my note,_ Hope thinks, both smiling and cringing at once at the idea of such unabashed teenage rebellion. The note was nothing but a couple of hastily scrawled sentences on some scrap paper or another, left on the kitchen countertop: 'Gone to Gotham, will stay with Bruce. I'll call sometime, and DON'T WORRY, I'm _your_ daughter, aren't I?' Signed, of course, 'Love, Hope.'

The truth was, she hadn't known where she was going until she started writing the note: after all, it isn't the destination that matters, it's all in the going, the getting there. But then, as if there could never be any question of it at all, Hope had known exactly where to go: to Bruce (this also conveniently got her out of doing thank-you letters, for a time). The car runs like silk over the long stretches of dark highway, and it is only very rarely that Hope passes another car—she figures she has to go as far as she can before she stops, just to deter her parents from possibly following.

She drives for roughly eight hours before she drags herself into a motel (praying that no one will destroy or steal her car—and she is lucky, no one seems to want to touch it, as if it's some kind of joke and believing in it makes you a fool). The excitement has completely gone from her, and all the girl thinks of is a bed, and once that is in order, she barely has time to lock the door behind her and kick her shoes off, before she falls into a deep, deep sleep.

Hope wakes the next morning, and for a few terrorizing seconds, isn't quite sure where she is. The bed and sheets she's nestled in feel too hard, uncomfortable, and foreign to her skin. When she realizes where she is (or more so, where she is going and what happened the night before) the feeling of sickness in her stomach does not subside, but rather doubles. For a few minutes all she can bear to do is toss and turn on her slightly itchy bed, feeling stupid and ultimately homesick.

_Well, you can't go running back now,_ she insists to herself, even if the more sensible part of her mind disagrees immensely, doesn't see anything wrong with heading back as soon as possible. Hope shuffles a hand through her thick, slept-in hair, finds a hair band to tie it back with, and then goes about inspecting her hotel room—more or less she is seeing the place for the first time, as she dropped off to sleep within moments of arriving. This short walk-around is not impressive at all, and she almost wonders how she could let herself sleep in such a dump. _It was cheap,_ she tries to justify, but she already wonders if she's going to run out of money by the time she gets to Gotham: gas, of course, being the single-most important and expensive thing of all.

When the teenaged girl stops before a mirror (which is relatively small, from her chest up), she is almost startled at the face looking back at her: the slightly pinched set of her jaw, and most of all, the way her eyes seem to be different from when she last took the time to look. The sharpness that has been there since she was old enough to look isn't necessarily gone, but it appears to have turned more inward, as if Hope is seeing the world clearly and openly, but secretly analyzing all of it from the corner's of her eyes. Suddenly, the steel that she longs for, that gives her comfort in her uncertainties, is there supporting her: she cannot go home, she need not go home—_This is my _adventure, _right?_

Quickly she slips into a grimy shower and spends as little time as possible amongst the mildewed and discolored tiles that suggest mold. When that is finished she dries up as well as possible, and slips into a different change of clothes, putting the old ones in a plastic bag that she had brought for the purpose, and then sticking the bag into her backpack. Within thirty minutes of waking, Hope is down at the lobby, and then out on the road again, this time with a map (before she had just known to head east, knew that it was going to be too early to really pick and choose highways yet). The day is unbearably hot, and the girl feels almost nauseas in her car, which reminds her more of an oven than a car at that point. Hope drives.

It takes a day or so more before she realizes that without a doubt, she is going to run out of money for gas, whether she sleeps in her car or in a sleazy motel. This irritates her greatly, to be caught so unprepared. _I won't fly, _Hope assures herself._ And I won't call for help unless absolutely necessary._

Hope sets a stubbornly (and optimistically maybe, an odd combination) firm resolve, deciding that she will go as far as she can, and that if she keeps her eyes open, opportunities would present themselves. As her gas money situation becomes more and more desperate (and there were at least four days between her and Gotham, after a day that she had to spend off the road during an immense thunderstorm), the teenager realizes that she might well be doing dishes in some roach-infested fast-food joint, if she doesn't find anything else.

Another option (in the way she knew it would) eventually presents itself to her. She is sitting on the hood of her car, eating a customary burger and fries (Hope might be inclined to sleep in her car when money is tight, but she refuses to go hungry) when two men, each holding a fair amount of alcohol in his system, stumble past her. The teenager is wrapped in her own thoughts, and pays the two passing humans no mind—until they are practically next to her; with a start she at once hears their jeering, slurred voices.

"Danserz shouldnn' et such badh foodh," One man says, pointing between Hope and what's left of her fries. Part of her itches for sunlight, can feel the lack of it on her skin (night has fallen on wherever she is, somewhere where the Midwestern and the Eastern states merge). The other part of her, more habitual and trained than the other, can taste the shadows, and easily spots where to slip to if need be.

_Not that you can't handle two drunks,_ she thinks, smirking darkly.

The man starts jabbering again, and a snarl begins to rise on Hope's lips as he comes closer. His buddy is laughing and shaking his head. A growl builds in her chest, rumbling almost impossibly deep for a girl her age—impressive coming from her vocal chords, but of course, only a pale imitation of the man she imagines as she musters it.

"Dude," The second man says to his friend, pulling him back. _And best you should,_ Hope thinks, frightened because she doesn't know how to handle the situation efficiently. "I dun think sshee's a danzer." He smiles at her, gives her a thumbs up. "Nicze car though!" They walk away without further incident, and she breathes a sigh of relief.

_Dancer?_ Hope thinks. _Where the hell do people _dance_ around here?_

Her eyes wander, and she focuses them into a more than hawk-like intensity, scanning over the adjacent buildings, lined up next to each other. Her eyes pass over the somehow amazingly bright (thanks to numerous tubes of neon lighting) and yet dark outline of a certain building—and then, invariably return to it. Even from her distance, a good 500 feet, across the dark parking lot, she can read the sign perfectly: topless dancing.

_Oh,_ she thinks, with a stunning brutality. _I can't believe you didn't get that faster—you must be getting dense. Why else would two drunk guys be talking about 'dancers'?_ Her mouth curls into a thin grimace, but she can't pull her eyes away.

"You wouldn't," She whispers her own disbelief, eyes wide in the face of such sheer boldness. And then there is a creeping sensation that crawls into her gut. _I would. _She feels like she is shedding something that has bound her, but at the same time, kept her warm and safe. It doesn't occur to her that she is slipping out of her childhood, like a change of clothes; it doesn't occur to her that snakes can't put back on their old skins—to be finished with all childhood, to fully step into the realm of in-between, is a permanent deal.

And like so many others (so many perfectly _human_ others) she throws aside her childhood, and plunges with ready anxiety—if a bit of reedy fear—into the gray area between child and adult without half a backward glance. Though her parents, nor her Godfather for that matter, would certainly disapprove of this kind of situation, it can be said that at least she was not _forced_ out of her childhood. At eight she revived her 'uncle' (whom she will never, ever call uncle) from death—even that, however, was not a brutal enough shock to rip her youth away from her, unlike the man himself. And so, nearly on tiptoes, and moving quickly, before she can allow her fear to erode her sudden courage, Hope skitters to the door of the topless bar.

There is a moment were she braces herself, hands tightening into fists that could bend steel, and then her lips drawn back into the fierce grin-snarl of one who doesn't know what to find behind the next door.

She enters, and the smoky, dim air passes over her.


End file.
